


only god is to blame

by ifuckboyswhofuckgirls (cadmiumredvulpini)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers Tower, Feels, Games, M/M, Oneshot, Sad, dramatic fuck, idk how to tag, no happy ending?, potomac, serious angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-11 00:04:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4413167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadmiumredvulpini/pseuds/ifuckboyswhofuckgirls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"he wants the boy who shared an apartment with him in midtown brooklyn and broke his back over his knee just to keep steve alive because his gears rusted and his heart’s stopped a thousand times over. he wants the boy who was his and will never be his just so he can feel alive again, because he lost that boy when he gained his body and boy, would steve give away his muscles and his strength because <b>he’d rather feel his heart break than get his heart broken</b>."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	only god is to blame

**Author's Note:**

> me being a poetic fuck

there's a ghost in his chest and a howling ache in his heart he’s almost familiar with. for the first time since he's slept in the avengers tower after falling into the potomac he feels it again. that same downward pulling motion, his feet giving way into the air and no one grabs for him, he just falls, scream caught in his throat and blood smeared all over his face as his body plunges into the cold chilling water. his eyes stay open for a few moments, and all he sees in the gloomy dark depth of water is shrapnel and broken glass and all the things he's never admitted to himself.

so his breath gives out after a minute or two and his eyes they get lost into the blackness, tiny blue halos invisible in the water. and then something big rushes past him and there's a vacuum and he gets sucked in, nevermind the squirming black figure desperately reaching for him.

some underwater flame goes out and the blackness is complete, followed by the silence, so compelling in its nature steve thinks he's dead. thinks what serum he's been given can't keep him alive. thinks the hand pulling him up is the devil pulling him into hell.

and he surfaces, his body willing him into consciousness when he finally feels the flames licking him, hears a familiar laughing voice cruelly in his ear and then what follows is silence. just like the one below. except there's the dimming sky and the scent of burning and the thud of another heart beside his he almost recognizes the beat.

but that's not it. all of a sudden his body shakes, a tremor rocking through his body as a violent sound escapes his lips. his savior is visibly confused and afraid, steve was laughing.

how god hated him. had cursed him with james buchanan barnes at the age of 12, how he was blessed with a kind heart and an adamant love but oh, how he'd been deceived. god sold him the faultiest watch up his sleeve and then disappeared into the crowd like the cunning conman he was. steve breaks over a thousand times and nothing can save him. not even bucky can.

and when oh, a miracle decides to grace his life and brings him a body to match that brave heart of his, bucky falls into a mountainside.

only god is to blame.

and he crashes his plane into the ice thinking he's had the upper hand and he'd die and god'd had enough of him.

but he waited seventy years in the patient arms of permafrost while god laughed at his greatest tragedy.

oh, steve's almost had enough of playing.

and then bucky was back.

and just like that god had the upper hand again.

and when he washes up on that shore, vaguely aware of a mouth on his, of hard lips meeting his cold blue own, god won the game because steve never thought this day would come. and when he wakes up alone and dry and dehydrated his fingers ghost his lips and god must be playing his tricks again.

because steve smiles for what feels like the first time in a century and he doesn't see bucky again. ever. not until god plays him another horrible deal again. makes a horrible bargain and takes an eye for a leg and a head for a finger, an arm for a heart.

steve would give up all of his body for whatever little he could have of bucky.

but he's still being pulled down by the vacuum and the hand doesn't come, the light doesn't swim down to meet him because bucky's not there and he's in new york city.

he’s in a tower with strangers and friends and a voice that fills the rooms and talks to him and it’s a voice from the past—one of the very few voices from his time that he ever gets to hear nowadays. but he doesn’t want them, he doesn’t want the voice from his past he wants one thing—he wants his bucky back.

he wants the boy who shared an apartment with him in midtown brooklyn and broke his back over his knee just to keep steve alive because his gears rusted and his heart’s stopped a thousand times over. he wants the boy who was his and will never be his just so he can feel alive again, because he lost that boy when he gained his body and boy, would steve give away his muscles and his strength because he’d rather feel his heart break than get his heart broken.

steve wants the boy back and he’ll never get it because god’s still playing a game. it’s him or god and it’s one outliving the other and steve with his serum might just win someday. he’s gonna win the game but he’s gonna lose bucky. because bucky’s the collateral damage he’s the no-man’s land in between and the war prize at the same time.

so when his fingers ghost his lips like he did on the potomac’s shores god's started playing again, and so has steve.


End file.
